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The national controversy about the Boy Scout policy of excluding gays has focused on the right of a private organization to decide who its members are, or on discrimination and bigotry, depending on which side of the issue you fall on. At the eye of this storm, however, is the alleged immorality of homosexuality - and neither side is saying much about that.  

“One of the saddest things about the decision by the Boy Scouts (is) they send a clear message to those who need most to learn tolerance that homophobia is acceptable, natural, even praiseworthy.”  

So wrote Anna Quindlen in a page-long Newsweek essay criticizing the  

Scouts' policy and affirming the equality of gay people. “Gay men and lesbians are more than what they do in bed,” the Newsweek headline declared, as Quindlen called for society to acknowledge the rights of gay men and lesbians to be, well, ordinary, and to live free from prejudice.  

Newsweek was far from alone in condemning the Scouts policy and speaking out for gay rights. Indeed, the public response to the Supreme Court decision allowing the Scouts to continue excluding gays has been nothing short of astounding. Countless newspaper editorials across the country have chastised the organization, and numerous corporations, organizations, and cities have pulled their support from the Scouts in protest.  

“The attitude the Boy Scout's of America embraces is becoming increasingly offensive, declared Maine's Bangor Daily News. Conservative Utah's Salt Lake Tribune called the Scout ruling “disappointing” and anti-gay discrimination “silly.” Even the Ethicist column in the New York Times Magazine entered the fray, urging readers to withdraw from Scouting and dubbing the policy “too fundamental - and too cruel - to tolerate.” 

Several cities around the country have limited the use of schools, parks, or other municipal sites for Scouting activities, and companies as diverse as Chase Manhattan Bank and Textron, Inc. have cut off hundreds of thousands of dollars in support. A dozen United Way chapters across the country have also de-funded their local Scout troops.  

This reaction is a gage of the extraordinary progress that gay people  

have made in American society. More than ever before, individuals, organizations, and public entities are taking strong public stands against the widespread discrimination that targets lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and they deserve applause for that. For millions of Americans who live with such prejudice every day, these changes are welcome, and necessary, and have been a long time coming. 

Still, something important is missing. The national dialogue needs to move beyond the topic of discrimination to the real matter at stake here: morality 

The Scouts argue that their mission to instill young men with values and morals would be compromised by having homosexuals as members. They require members to remain “morally straight” and “clean,” and staunchly insist that homosexuals are neither. The flip side of their claim, of course, is that by definition, homosexuals and immoral and dirty. 

There is nothing immoral about being gay, just as there is nothing immoral about being straight. Simply stated, sexual orientation and morality have nothing to do with each other. Some gay people are moral giants: my friend Darrel, who took care of his dying partner through eight months of gruesome and relentless illness, demonstrating boundless dedication and love. And some straight people are immoral skunks: the people at Firestone who knew that their defective tires were killing people in freeways accidents here and abroad, yet did nothing.  

Morality is about character; it's about being honest, respectful, and  

principled. Morality describes the landscape of a person's heart and soul; it's about who they are in the world. It's not determined by which gender (or genders) someone is emotionally and sexually attracted to. It's about each of us as individual people, and the level of integrity with which we conduct our lives. 

I want more for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people than just the right to be Boy Scout Leaders, or to be out in the military, or to marry people of the same sex. I want us to be seen as fully human, with all the spiritual, emotional, sexual, and moral strengths and weaknesses we share with the rest of humanity. But as long as morality remains shackled to heterosexuality, we will continue to be labeled immoral, dirty, and somehow outside the human family.  

It is time for us as individuals and as a community to speak up - loud and clear and often - and grant gay people the moral ground that is rightfully theirs. 

Patrick Letellier is a freelance writer and activist living in Oakland. He writes a monthly political column for The Slant, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender newspaper out of Sonoma County. He can